A prosecution witness in the trial of three persons accused of murdering a former Northern Regional Chairman of the Convention People�s Party (CPP), Issa Mobila, Mr Mathias Abegnoore, Monday rejected suggestions by the defence that he had been untruthful.
He also rejected suggestions that he had borne false witness and concocted stories in a bid to get the accused persons behind bars.
Rather, he said he had, throughout his narration, presented a true picture of events leading to Mobila�s demise.
Counsel for the accused, Mr Thaddeus Sory, in his cross-examination of Mr Abegnoore, suggested that on two of the three occasions that he had appeared in the dock as a witness for the prosecution, he had added to his earlier stories on the events leading to the death of the
former regional chairman.
Mr Sory further suggested to Mr Abegnoore that his version of events was a false invention.
He said, for example, that when the witness first appeared in 2010, he never said he had seen or heard the accused persons asking the deceased to put his hands on the floor and his legs against the guard room wall, which was a form of torture, or that he heard Mr Mobila
groaning out of pain as a result of the physical harm inflicted on him, but in his subsequent appearances he told the court so.
In the opinion of counsel, that was because those statements were false and made up by the witness.
But Mr Abegnoore responded that if he did so, it was because the incident occurred long ago in 2004 and that he could not recall every incident at once.
Mr Sory came back at him saying if he (Abegnoore) could not in 2010 recall incidents that occurred in 2004, it was amazing that he could do so in 2012, adding, �2010 is closer to 2004 than 2012.�
�Any time you come to this court, your story is different,� he said, but Mr Abegnoore insisted that he had been truthful.
Mr Sory, again in a bid to point to the fact that Mr Abegnoore had not been truthful to the court, dwelt on witness� record as a policeman, his dismissal from the Ghana Police Service, his subsequent re-instatement and his failure to provide some documents relating to that issue to the court as he had promised.
Mr Abegnoore admitted that he had been dismissed from the Ghana Police Service but was re-instated after petitions filed on his behalf by his lawyer Alhaji Nuhu Billa.
He said most of the documents were with his lawyer and he had promised to present those documents to the court because he was sure he could get them from the lawyer.
Unfortunately, he said, after the last adjourned date when he sought to contact Alhaji Billa, he was told at the law chambers where he used to operate that he had died and that explained his failure to provide all the records.
He said the few documents in his (Abegnoore�s) possession were what Alhaji Billa had handed over to him when he was alive.
At that point, Mr Sory suggested that he had not provided the other documents because they contained information on the misconduct that had led to his dismissal, but Abegnoore disagreed.
�On the last adjourned date, you did not say the documents were with your counsel. You said you could produce them. This explanation that they are with your lawyer who is now deceased is a new theory you have propounded to pull wool over the eyes of the court,� Mr Sory said.
�You can check from the chambers if I sought to get the documents or not,� Abegnoore replied.
Mr Sory also sought to know why a letter to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) on his reinstatement, although dated September 29, 2009, had been received by the Police Administration, according to the records, on September 28 of that year.
�That is to say that even before you wrote the letter, the police administration had received it. This is strange,� Mr Sory said.
Mr Abegnoore explained that the September 29 date was an error.
The case has been adjourned to April 24 for hearing.
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